Because Things Change

Category Archives: Discovering Me

At first, I really did not like this book and thought it is going to be a very long 7 hours listening to Shonda’s tangy, irritating voice (by now you get I listened to the audiobook, right?) and her ramble on about her family and kids, but then we hit her Dartmouth Commencement speech and I’m like hang on, this chick has got a point:

“Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral, pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change”

And that is where I actually really started to listen, just over 1 hour into the book. Yes, we hit some more (a lot more) children related stories, and I’m all like, I don’t care about children, I don’t want children, this is boring, and some parts really are boring. But then we get the other parts. The parts that resonate within me and I think to myself, my god Joan, Shonda is talking to you. The part about her weight loss; getting so fat that you have to get seatbelt extenders on an airplane is a mortal fear of mine! And even though I have never heard of the term “Veal Practice” It is something I am totally familiar with, I do it all the time!

Making avatars of people and then not knowing where your friend went, when you finally, really see the real person behind your made-up friend, yeah, done that. Until listening to this book I did not understand that it was me; I needed to have that type of friend at a certain time in my life, so I had attributed certain characteristics to that avatar person to create her into the friend I needed, and truly loved at that time.

I only read this book because everyone else seems to have read it, and I need to know what I am missing out on when it comes to popular books. Plus Grey’s Anatomy Seasons 1 to 5 is my absolute favourite TV Show ever (and then it got a bit sucky, to be honest) So while I am sure this book is not a self-help book, it has certainly, in parts, shone a giant spot light on the crappy parts of my life and yeah, I am not Shonda, I do not have her achievements and I am not the creator of some amazing TV Shows, but I share a bunch of her problems, and perhaps I can do with a year of yes myself, or perhaps a couple of months of maybes to start off with.

I have so many things running through my mind at the moment, most of them not too great, so I thought that, in the style of Gilbert & Sullivan, I will make a little list of things that piss me off and hopefully that way I can let some of it go, for I’m sure that none of them will be missed.

SA Parliament. Can they get anymore unprofessional and childish?

Work. Why is everything such a mess all of a sudden? Processes that used to work suddenly is being ignored and we are bombarded with emails telling us to remember things, that we will NEVER remember

Certain colleagues who suddenly think things do not apply to them and need special treatment or do not have to follow any processes any more

This constant headache that just does not seem to go away

My shit internet connectivity. How is it possible to be ok one week and the next week all you get is Edge even though it says you have full signal. I just don’t understand

Dealing with call centres. Especially (and almost exclusively) to get shit internet sorted out

People who do not download complete seasons of Series. Seriously, be cool and just check that you have all the episodes. I know I should be grateful that I can copy your shit, but seriously I am assuming at some stage you would also want to watch it and good luck piecing together what happened in the missing episodes

Contestants on Reality TV shows who cry in front of the judges

The fact that everyone interviewed on these competition shows have seriously soppy stories. Nobody can just be a great performer, or singer or whatever it is they do. They all have had to go through some shitty ordeal. This might in fact be the thing that pisses me off the most.

People who starts playing a song and then skip it after 30 seconds, and then do the same to the next song and the next and the next. Seriously, pick a song and play it. How difficult is that?

People who compare Harry Potter and Twilight. Seriously, they are 2 completely separate and different stories. The only thing they have in common is that they are both book series and written by female authors.

When they carry on making more seasons of a series even though the story lines are depleted and most of the original cast has left the show, just because it is a cash cow. Grey’s Anatomy, I’m looking at you in particular, but not exclusively

This new fad of splitting movies into 2 or 3 parts to make more money, and then making us wait a whole year before releasing the next installment. I get it, Hollywood, you are a greedy bastard, but have you ever heard of double features? So how about making your damn multiple movies, keeping them until they are all done and then releasing them all together. Happy audiences and tons of money for you. It’s a win/win situation

People who create memes and then spell something wrong on them, then they get retweeted, repinned and spread around. Seriously? You made the effort to do all that, but it was just too much further effort to hit spellcheck?

I love the Shawshank Redemption and have watched it many times before, but this last time, something Andy said actually stuck with me. It was right after he did his 2 months in the box and he was talking to Red, he said “It is time to get busy living or get busy dying”. It’s quite a profound statement actually and it got me thinking about my current state of being.

I need to get busy living!

I was thinking what I love doing (besides reading) and the answer is dancing. I really like dancing. I used to do ballroom dancing, years back but gave it up as it was too expensive and as I hardly ever go to clubs anymore, I haven’t danced in ages. While I am not going to join classes any time soon (damn finances, and being super unfit), I have decided to look for my ballroom dance music and will start practicing at home again, just get into the swing of things. This will have a double positive influence as it counts as exercise and I will be doing something I love.

When I was young, I used to think being a dancer was the most fabulous thing to be, but then again it might have to do with all the feathers and glitter.

I have been toying with the idea of cancelling my blog and giving up the whole thing, but then I decided I like Kaleidoscopic Chameleon and the theme, but I still wanted to start fresh and new. So, I cancelled all the past posts, categories and tags, and this is me starting over. In a way it is also symbolic of my life; you already have the foundation so you have to work on reconstructing and shaping what you have to become what you want to be. (Blegh, that sound soppy and preachy, but also true.)

It was my 31st birthday 20 days ago (but don’t tell anyone, as I insist on staying 30 until I have some direction in my life) and with that came the all too familiar feelings of a slight panic, suppressed by my insistence on not having any emotions at all, because I do not know what I want in life or where I see myself when I think of my future. I obviously know that I want lots of money, even more books and all the time in the world to read the books (very unrealistic, I know, and that is part of the problem).

I cannot say that I am happy, or unhappy and I am not content either, yet I have no idea what or who I want to be and do with myself. I do know the one aspect of my life that I am unhappy about, and that is my physical self, which is probably the easiest aspect to fix, compared to my emotional and mental self, which is also messed up or I would not be feeling this lost or confused. I am starting to cut down on coffee as too much of it gives me headaches, I am also trying to eat better, even though it is hard following the worked out eating plan I signed up with, and then I want need to start exercising again and work on my fitness, which is basically non-existant. I am sure once I start fixing the physical, the rest will start falling into place and I want to use this blog to try figuring out who I really am and who I want to be. I know I was happy once, even though I was still flawed then, but I want to go back to that, or even better than that.